Peloponnese edition 2

Hi guys,

Right after school ended, I went to the Peloponnese for the second time. In my previous post, you can learn what I did the first time and in todays post, you can read what I did this time. Both trips were soooo stunning but both a bit different so make sure to read both blogs! The first time I went there with my sister and her boyfriend, this time I went there with my mom. We only went there for a couple of days so we had to skip some highlights. We're planning on doing the rest, some other time. Since the island of Zakynthos isn't far away from this area, we plan on combining these trips!

The info about the sites are all linked below so if you need more info, just follow the links. There's also more info about all places on my social media posted. If you scroll a bit down, you can enjoy all my photos there as well!

I went there on wednesday, right after school ended. Got to take every spare minute I have right? We flew there in the afternoon and arrived at Athens airport around 6pm I think. I flew with Sky express, a pretty new company. We rented a car and then drove to our first hotel, the hotel was a charming hotel in the middel of the Pelleponese area. The hotel was literally on the beach. The name was: Golden Moon, in Tolo. Tolo is a small town close to Nafplion.

Also something important to know, we went there during the first crazy heatwave of this past summer. In Mycenae, it was about 45 degrees Celcius. This made the seawater super hot, like 27 degrees which was very nice :). I'm always cold so I love the heat but even I sweated like crazy non stop. A break from all the visits in the sea is definitely recommended. It's silly but actually also you get used to this weather super fast. At one night, is was about 30 degrees celcius and I felt a bit chilly haha! Am I weird?

On thursday, july the first, the first full day there we already did my personal highlight. We went to Mycenae.

Mycenae is a very old city the walls in the picture are from 1600 BC. It's city with a palace and lots of graves. The myceners originated from Minoan civilization and lived in the Bronze Age. A famous king of Mycenae was

Agamemnon, you can visit his grave on the site, it's called "treasury of Atreus". You might know him from the story of Troye, his life was pretty sad actually, first, to please the gods during the war, he had to kill his daughter.... and when his life wasn't dramatic enough, his wife, also did something bad. Clytaemnestra was her name, you can also visit her grave in the site. She actually killed Agamemnon to manage the empire with a new relationship.

After being completely melted from the 45 degrees, we went to the sunken city of Epidauros and then we visited the theatre of Epidauros.

The sunken city is not so famous and not well known. I brought my snorkel with me to Greece, because I really wanted to check this place out. It's an old Roman villa, that's literally sunken into the sea. The ruins are a couple

of meters away from the beach, you can swim to it. You can't really see the place from the beach itself. It's for free though. After swimming, we went to the theatre of Epidaurus, a bit further away from the sea. It has place for

14,000 visitors and is built in 350 BC. It's the best preserved theatre in the world! Also in the museum there: the healing holy place of Asclepios where they did rituals on patients to cure them. The rituals were secret but my research tells me that they basically made people stoned and let them heal with visions.

On friday, we explored the city of Nafplion. We started with the Mycen city called: Tiryns. Tiryns is a rather small city but in pretty good condition, knowing that it's founded around 1500 BC... I think it was very much worth the small pitstop. Because it's not famous, it was also pretty empty. We were literally the only ones there!

After that, we went to Nafplion. This is a super charming city near the sea. It has a harbour with a boulevard where you can walk and some lovely streets to wander around. Make sure to enter the gorgeous churches there as well. We started with the ruins of the fortress above the city. Here you can park your car. The views over the mountains and sea were just stunning. Then we went down to explore the city itself.

The next day, on saturday, we went to Corynth. I normally wanted to go to Sparta, but the drive was too long and the weather way too good to drive so long. If I'd have more time, I'd totally go there. Also: another place I skipped this time was Delphi. This is in the North of Athens. We also didn't have time to go here this time but the first

time, I was blown away. I'm totally coming back one day!

We started with the ancient city of Corynth and then we drove uphills to Akrokorynth. The archeological site of corynth is another must visit in my opinion. It's still in such a good condition! If you don't have enough time, you can skip Akrokorynth. But if you have enough time, make sure to drive uphills and visit the fortress. The view there is amazing and it's for free!

Sunday was my last day there, we went to visit Athens. My mom really wanted to go there so this is why we skipped Sparta and changed our plans a bit. We started with the acropolis and then went to the agora. After that we went to Hadrians library. We had a combiticket so we were able to visit all places with just one ticket.

The acropolis is the most famous archeological of entire Greece. It's a must visit if you want to learn more about the Greek history. The origins from the acropolis are build on the mountain in the middel of the city. The darker layer of stones, are actually from the Mycenaean civilization. Cool right?

On the site of the agora, you can wander around through old Greek/ Roman streets. You can really imagine how life would've been 3000 years ago. Just amazing! After the agora, we went to Hadrians library, a not well known site but it was in our combiticket so we went for it. It was a quite place, in the hectic centre of Athens.

It was a pretty busy day but yeah, we needed to enjoy our trip to the very last minute, right?

Have you been to Athens or the Pelleponese before?

X Steph